Tuesday, December 31, 2013

I received an email from Rebecca Vilkomerson of JVP. Its a plea for money. She asks me to chose between the ADL and JVP.
Really Rebecca. Really?
As a Jew, as a Zionist, do you really think there is a choice?
Do I side with conspiracy theorists whose stated goal is to "drive a wedge" through my community?

Jewish Voice for Peace from the Zombietime website

Do I side with a venerable organization that’s taken the lead in securing justice and fair treatment for all people?

Sorry, Rebecca. It’s a no brainer for me.

You are absolutely correct about one thing. This is about two very different world views,

I reject JVP primarily for its hypocrisy. For promoting a concert featuring vile anti-Semite Gilad Atzmon, after publicly denouncing him. For taking him out to coffee and offering him "support" if only he used the term "Zionist" instead of "Jew".

JVP courting Gilad Atzmon

I reject JVP for consistently standing shoulder to shoulder with the enemies of our people. For embracing those that would destroy us.
I reject JVP for its refusal to acknowledge the right of the Jewish people to self determination in our ancient homeland.
I reject JVP for giving lip service to the very real threats facing the Jewish people, without ever taking affirmative action to help.

Sunday, December 29, 2013

Israel is continuing to make tremendous and painful sacrifices for peace. The following
are the names of the prisoners slated for release, as published by the
Israel Prison Service along with their offenses. The release of these criminals was a per-conditon of the Palestinians before they would even sit down and negotiate peace.
There are thugs and murderers. Do not let anyone try and tell you that these are "political " prisoners

Muhammad Yusuf Adnan Elafandi, arrested May 13, 1992, for stabbing two
youths in Jerusalem. After the attack, his life was saved by an Israeli
woman who defended him from a lynch mob. He was convicted of attempted
murder.

Farid Ahmed Shahade, arrested February 16, 1985, for
the murder of Yosef Farhan, a suspected collaborator with Israel, in
Jaffa.

Yakoub Muhammad Ouda Ramadan, Afana Mustafa Ahmad
Muhammad, and Da’agna Nufal Mahmad Mahmoud, arrested April 1, 1993. The
three were convicted of stabbing Sara Sharon, 37, to death in Holon on
January 20, 1993.

Abu al Rub Mustafa Mahmoud Faisal and Kamil
Awad Ali Ahmad, convicted of murder in the killing of 20-year-old IDF
soldier Yoram Cohen in a shootout in the West Bank town of Jenin. Ali
Ahmad was also convicted of kidnapping, torturing and murdering 15
Palestinians suspected of collaborating with Israel.

Abu Mohsin Khaled Ibrahim Jamal, arrested April 10, 1991, and convicted
of murder. Abu-Muhsan ambushed Shlomo Yahya, a 76-year-old gardener, in
a public park in Moshav Kadima and stabbed him to death.

Tamimi Rushdi Muhammad Sa’id, convicted of kidnapping and murdering
Hayim Mizrahi at a Palestinian-owned farm outside the settlement of Beit
El, where Mizrahi lived, in 1993. Mizrahi had come to the farm to shop
for eggs.

Silawi Khaled Kamel Osama, one of three Palestinians
convicted in the murder of Motti Biton. Similar to Mizrahi, Biton was
shot while he was shopping for groceries in a Palestinian-owned store.
Afterwards his wife, who was in the car outside, fired at his attackers,
who detonated a pipe bomb and fled.

Sawafta Sudqi Abdel Razeq
Mouhlas, who stabbed Yosef Malka (Malkin) to death on December 29, 1990,
during an attempt to rob his home in Haifa.

Barham Fawzi
Mustafa Nasser, arrested December 20, 1993, for the murder of Morris
(Moshe) Edri. Nasser, a former employee of Edri, 65, ambushed Edri and
stabbed him in the back. After he was apprehended, he said he had
carried out the murder to prove that he was worthy of joining Hamas.

Mahmud Muhammad Salman, arrested May 6, 1994, and
convicted in the murder of Shai Shoker. Salman strangled Shoker with a
shoelace outside Tira on February 2, 1994.

Mahmoud Ibrahim Abu-Ali Faiz, convicted of murdering Ronny Levy.

Zaki Rami Barbakh Jawdat, convicted of murdering Yosef Zandani.

Mustafa Ahmed Khaled Jumaa, convicted of aggravated assault, up for release in 2014.

Abu Hadir Muhammad Yassin Yassin, convicted of murder. Yassin shot
Yigal Shahaf, 24, in the head while Shahaf and his wife were walking
through Jerusalem’s Old City toward the Western Wall. Shahaf died in
hospital on the following day.

Muammar Ata Mahmoud Mahmoud and
Salah Khalil Ahmad Ibrahim, convicted of murdering Menahem Stern, a
history professor at Hebrew University. Stern, 64, a winner of the
prestigious Israel Prize, was stabbed to death while walking to work at
the university’s Givat Ram campus on June 22, 1989. Ibrahim was also
convicted in the murder of Eli Amsalem. In addition, the two murdered a
Palestinian suspected of collaborating with Israel, Hassin Zaid.

Taqtuq Lutfi Halma Ibrahim, arrested March 3, 1989, and convicted of
murder in the shooting of IDF soldier Binyamin Meisner, on February 24,
1989, in Nablus.

....I have given much thought to the events of that terrible day, that
culminated in my near murder and the execution of my friend. I believe
that I of all people could be forgiven for hating Palestinians. I
believe too that I could be forgiven for thinking all Palestinians are
terrorists. But I do not. On the contrary, I have maintained
relationships with my Palestinian friends, so that my ignorance will not
give me reason to hate. I hate hatred. It is the hatred of St. James’s Church in London, in the form of a Christmas stunt, that has compelled me to write.

I would like to think that as Christians, the church would never
condone Kristine Luken’s heinous murder or the attack on myself. I
suspect however that you may rationalise this savagery as an inevitable
result of the “Israeli occupation.”

You would probably suggest that the Palestinians who murdered my
friend were themselves victims who grew up in depravity. I would
concur, but would point out that if poverty was the case, the
aristocrats who flew into the twin towers had no reason to commit their
crimes.

The Palestinian terrorists were indeed victims, victims of a radical
and primitive Islamist regime that force feeds them a morally
malnourished diet of hatred of Jews and hatred of any life – including
their own. They were also deprived: deprived of an education that
cherishes culture, history, literature, art and the dignity of
difference. Their impoverished morality coupled with ignorant
generalisations is what enabled two men to butcher defenceless women
without so much as blinking an eye.

If the wall was scrutinised, one would see that underneath the
whitewashed surface that concerns itself with Israeli policies, there
are blocks of anti-Semitism. These bricks stand high. They raise
expectations from an entire people group. This wall precedes to separate
the nation of Israel as non-desirable.

The wall is cemented together by a superior theology that tells it’s
people that G-d gave up on the Jews. This is the same theology that lies
behind radical Islam. G-d tried the Jews, then the Christians, but
ultimately it was the Muslims who He ultimately chose.

The wall, is just one brick in a global wall of an Islamist agenda,
an agenda that will stop at nothing until the destruction of the Jewish
State. To your own cultural detriment, it is a wall that obstructs truth
and ultimately seeks not only to destroy Israel but every
Judeo-Christian society.

The wall inflames an ancient conflict that for those like myself, who
live in this region, long not for an exacerbation in hatred but for a
quenching of hostilities.

The wall is an affront to Kristine Luken and other victims of terror
who may well have been alive today had there have been a wall erected on
the other 90 percent of land that separates us from our Palestinian
neighbours.

The wall is an injustice to Christians living under Muslim despots.
Ironically it is the State of Israel, that you deem pariah and unjust,
that is unique in the Middle East because unlike all of our neighbours,
our Christian population is flourishing and our Christians have full
religious rights.

Please write on your wall, under the cross, now obscured by the crescent…. “R.I.P Kristine Luken.”

Saturday, December 28, 2013

Two of the Katyushas crossed the border and landed in Israel,
causing no casualties but some damage.

IDF Spokesman
Brig.-Gen. Yoav Mordechai announced that the Iron Dome rocket defense
system intercepted a third rocket between Acre and Nahariya.

One missile
hit Kibbutz Gesher Haziv, damaging a road and vehicles parked on it. Another
projectile landed in a built-up community in the Western Galilee. There were no
injuries in the attack, Magen David Adom paramedics said. Local residents
reported that one rocket fell close to a home in which dozens of Holocaust
survivors reside.

Two residents suffered shock and were taken to
Nahariya’s Western Galilee Hospital.

Israel lodged a formal complaint with UNIFIL the United Nations peacekeeping force stationed along the border with Lebanon.

The J post reports:

A UN spokesman said that “UNIFIL [United Nations Interim Force in
Lebanon] is aware of the reports and the mission has sent one of its helicopters
to investigate the incident. The force commander is also in contact with various
parties and has called for restraint.”

St James Church in Piccadilly, London has built a replica of the Israeli security barrier as part of their holiday program "Bethlehem Unwrapped" Not the 97% that is a chain link fence- there is no drama in that.

St James’s Church, Piccadilly,
in London’s West End has installed a life size 8 metre tall/30 metre
long replica of Israel’s security wall in its courtyard as part of its Bethlehem Unwrapped festival. The replica wall is so vast that it obscures the Church itself.

The replica wall will be lit up at night and for the next twelve days
of Christmas (until 5th January) a montage of images and slogans will
be continuously projected onto it. Scenes include parts of London with a
wall passing through it.

What you won’t see projected onto the replica wall are scenes of
bombed out Israeli buses, hotels, pizza restaurants, bars and nightclubs
that were ubiquitous in Israel before the wall.

Apparently the church has have encouraged people to come along and write messages on their wall.

Sharon and Lesley again at the St James market place
today armed with our bag of acrylic paint and wall brush. (SWU clearly
not there – again)With no support from anybody the sense was one of antagonism, being
watched as we were by the wardens present it seemed, in case we dared to
write on the wall. Seeing our paint Tom, a St James warden approached
us to say we could only use their now worn out felt pens. Explaining the
uselessness of those pens and the fact that others had used spray paint
Debbie, another warden said she’d get us some of theirs. Returning a
while later she produced grey – the shade they use to obliterate posts
they don’t approve of. In the end Tom told me I could paint one message
on a designated spot, provided I was professional and refrained from
being abusive. Odd that seeing that others could write what and where
they wanted as many times as they wanted!So I painted This Wall Saves Lives, started to write that 1340
Israeli citizens have died as a result of terrorist attacks since 2000,
but Tom’s space and location didn’t permit!

Sharon and Lesley are right. Israel's security barrier saves lives.

Pointless Asides:

Sharon and Lesley's strategy has precedent. Several years back, a painting of Israel's security barrier appeared at the Santa Clara Palestinian Cultural Day Commemoration. Viewers were encouraged to interact with the piece- markers were provided

Santa Clara Palestinian Cultural day

The message "Israel wants peace" was added to the painting of the security barrier.

Santa Clara Palestinian Cultural day

An Israeli and a Palestinian flag were eventually added to Handela, turning him into an effective symbol of peaceful co-existence. Nice touch.

The anti-Israel cru have invested too much time and money in this monstrosity to assume it will be shelved at the end of Christmas. I suspect London is just its debut performance. It will likely be coming to a city near you. Be prepared.

"It
is a with deep regret that we in the American Studies Program at
Brandeis University have decided to discontinue our institutional
affiliation with the American Studies Association. We view the recent
vote by the membership to affirm an academic boycott of Israel as a
politicization of the discipline and a rebuke to the kind of open
inquiry that a scholarly association should foster."

"Indiana
University joins other leading research universities in condemning in
the strongest possible terms the boycott of institutions of higher
education in Israel as proposed by the American Studies Association and
other organizations. Boycotts such as these have a profound chilling
effect on academic freedom, and universities must be clear and
unequivocal in rejecting them...

...Indiana
University will contact the ASA immediately to withdraw as an
institutional member. We urge the leadership of the ASA and other
associations supporting the boycott to rescind this dangerous and
ill-conceived action as a matter of urgency."

"Academic
freedom – the unfettered exchange of ideas – is a cornerstone of
liberal education...I cherish academic freedom and I oppose the ASA
boycott of Israel...

...The
ASA is, first and foremost, an academic society aimed at the promotion
of interdisciplinary studies of American culture and history. This
commitment to scholarship, teaching, and learning is what drew Kenyon to
participate in ASA activities in the past. But, as the president of a
College with an unwavering commitment to the liberal arts and the
concept of academic freedom, I reject the notion of a boycott of
academic institutions as a geopolitical tool. I concur with the decision
of our American Studies program to withdraw as an institutional member
of the ASA."

"As
a prominent program in American Studies concerned for the welfare of
its students and faculty, Penn State Harrisburg is worried that the
recent actions by the National Council of the American Studies
Association (ASA) do not reflect the longstanding scholarly enterprise
American Studies stands for. The withdrawal of institutional membership
by our program and others allows us to be independent of the political
and ideological resolutions issued by the ASA and concentrate on
building American Studies scholarship with our faculty, students, and
staff. There might be alternative organizations forming in the future
that better represent the field of American Studies. When and if that
occurs, we will re-examine our independent position. In the meantime we
view this move as one intended to protect students and faculty from
opprobrium as a result of the ASA’s claim to represent scholars of
American studies."

By
day, Falk serves as the United Nations special rapporteur for human
rights in the Palestinian territories, where his support for the
terrorist group Hamas has been so blatant that
the Palestinian Authority tried to get him fired. The United
States and Canada have also called for
him to be dismissed, and he has been censured by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. But Falk’s most objectionable conduct has actually
taken place outside the U.N.’s halls.

In 2004, he wrote the preface to a book by conspiracytheorist
David Ray Griffin which argued that the Bush administration helped
perpetrate the 9/11 attacks. “There have been questions
raised here and there and allegations of official complicity made almost
from the day of the attacks, especially in Europe,” Falk wrote, “but no
one until Griffin has had the patience, the fortitude, the courage, and
the intelligence to put the pieces together
in a single coherent account.” In 2011, Falk mused
on his blog about the “apparent cover up” of 9/11, and the
“eerie silence of the mainstream media, unwilling to acknowledge the
well-evidenced doubts about the official version of the events.” He
reaffirmed these views this past June, when he told
radio host and 9/11 truther Kevin Barrett that “questioning that deeply
the official version of 9/11 does touch the third rail of American
political sensitivities, and there is an attempt to discredit and
destroy anyone that makes such a bold statement, and
this has intimidated a lot of people.”

Falk
is an equal opportunity advocate of conspiracy theories, not just about
America, but about Jews. In 2011, he effusively blurbed a vicious
book which called American Jews “the enemy within,” questioned
the historicity of the Holocaust, and claimed that “robbery and hatred is imbued in Jewish modern political ideology on both
the left and the right.” In Falk’s opinion,
prominently showcased on the book’s front cover, such insights
constitute “a transformative
story told with unflinching integrity that all (especially Jews) who
care about real peace, as well as their own identity, should not only
read, but reflect upon and discuss widely.” Of course, in the opinion of
everyone else–including
Ali Abunimah and Omar Barghouti, leaders of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel–such ugly utterances constitute blatant anti-Semitism. As Andrew Sullivan, no Israeli apologist, put
it, “Why would anyone blurb a book like this? I’m
all for airing a variety of views, and provocative theories. That
doesn’t mean you have to endorse poisonous, wounding hate.” And just in
case you thought this was an odd aberration for
Falk, he’s having lunch with the book’s author this week. It’s business as usual for the man who has dubbed
the Jewish state “genocidal” and repeatedlycompared it to Nazi Germany, and once posted
a cartoon of a yarmulke-wearing dog urinating on Lady Justice while chewing on a bloody skeleton.

We condemn and completely reject Richard Falk’s latest outrageous statements made during an interview with Russia Today.
The Administration has repeatedly condemned in the strongest terms his
despicable and deeply offensive comments, particularly his anti-Semitic
blog postings, his endorsement of 9/11 conspiracy theories, and more
recently, his deplorable statements with regard to the terrorist attacks
in Boston. His most recent remarks, however, represent a new low. We do
not support his mandate or his work, which has been one-sided and
biased, nor do we believe he should continue to serve as independent UN
rapporteur, and we reiterate our calls for him to step down from this
role.

We note that his term as Special Rapporteur ends in March 2014, and he cannot be reappointed to the role after that time.

What does a promoter of antisemitism, a shill for terrorists and a conspiracy theorist do when his UN position expires?

Wednesday, December 25, 2013

William Jacobson at Legal Insurrection has been taking the lead at exposing the agenda of the American Studies Association boycott of Israeli academic institutions, and has served as an inspiration in orchestrating a response.

Former Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, now President of Purdue University: ”This
is as clear a violation of academic freedom as one can imagine. We
(Purdue) do not appear to have any institutional relationship with the
American Studies Association, but are checking to see whether any of our
departments do.”

Ron Liebowitz, President of Middlebury College:
“the vote is a sad reflection of an extreme and hateful ideology of
some members of the academy …. I urge others in the academic community
to condemn the ASA boycott and reaffirm their support for academic
freedom.”

James F. Jones, Jr., President of Trinity College (CT)writing
to the President of ASA: “Trinity once years back was an institutional
member… Were we still an institutional member, we would not be any
longer after the misguided and unprincipled announcement of the boycott
of the only democracy in the Middle East…. As President of the ASA, you
have tarnished a once distinguished association”

The accumulation of similar statements from University Presidents and
others — including people who are critical of Israeli policies — surely
must sting the academic boycotters, who are under the misconception
that the American world is run by the “Israel Lobby.”

To the contrary, there is near universal condemnation from a wide
range of American civil society — that condemnation is heartfelt,
willingly given, and reflects the best traditions of American academic
life.

The refusal of American civil society to acquiesce in the anti-Israel
boycotters’ attack on academic freedom is not itself an attack on
academic freedom.

In full on panic mode as their delegitimization strategy crumbles to pieces, the U.S. Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI) is scrabbling to provide a response. Their current campaign focuses on their inevitable fallback position, "Wait! We're the victims! Really, we are", with an occasional nod to their slightly more introspective rationalization, "the ASA resolution has had tremendous effect on starting debate on Palestine.", segueing into the inevitable "When we lose, we still win".

To the American Studies Association, academic freedom gives them the right to deprive others of academic freedom

Free Speech for me, but not for thee, brought to you by the morally bankrupt gatekeepers of academia- the American Studies Association.

We will continue to rally support among American civil society. That
support comes willingly, as one of the movers behind the Boycott,
Divest and Sanction (BDS) movement in the U.S., who runs the Electronic
Intifada website, lamented today on Twitter:

The BDS movement went too far this time. Its position on academic boycotts is indefensible.The supporters of academic BDS have exposed themselves as the threat
to civil society they are. It’s easy to laugh when they do flash mobs
outside coffee shops and in grocery stores and call for the boycott of
hummus. It’s not so easy to laugh when they shout down speakers.It creates spontaneous outrage when they use academic organizations
as political tools and easily cast aside the academic freedom of
everyone in their desire to damage Israel.BDS charged up the wrong hill.When some of the harshest critics of Israeli policies say an academic
boycott of Israel is too much, the academic BDS movement has no ground
to stand on.This is not, as Electronic Intifada claims, a counterattack by the Israel Lobby. It’s a counterattack by American civil society, and soon political society, against the attack on our core freedoms.Don’t let this pass with just denunciations.This is the hill to fight BDS on.

Prof. William Jacobson has been among those taking the lead in this assault against our academic freedom. Please follow Legal Insurrection to keep up to date on this issue.

StandWithUs has also come out with practical steps you can take to fight back.

1.
WRITE TO THE PRESIDENT OF UNIVERSITIES/COLLEGES WITH WHICH YOU ARE
AFFILIATED AS A STUDENT, PARENT OF STUDENTS, ALUM, FACULTY, OR DONOR.
URGE THE PRESIDENT TO:

Withdraw the school from the ASA if it is an institutional member of the organization.

Publicly denounce the ASA and the academic boycott. In 2007, over 300 presidents of American universities signed a statement
deploring academic boycotts as "utterly antithetical to the fundamental
values of the academy," and declared, "Boycott Israeli universities?
Boycott ours too!" University leaders should have the same united
response today.

Not allow university funds to be used for ASA-related activities.
The ASA has demonstrated that it is a politicized organization, no
longer one of scholars devoted to research and education. As former
Harvard University president Lawrence Summers, said
"My hope would be that responsible university leaders will become very
reluctant to see their university funds used to finance faculty
membership and faculty travel to an association that is showing itself
not to be a scholarly association but really more of a political tool."

Publicly
deplore the ASA`s travesty of scholarship, research and analysis, and
reassure the community that the school will uphold scholarly standards.
The resolution is based on distortions, erasure of context, and false
or disputed claims, and uses circular reasoning or irrational leaps of
logic. It is not based on sober, reasonable analysis or rational
analysis of evidence. It is an assault on the most elementary scholarly
standards.

Publicly denounce the ASA`s assault on Israel.
BDS is an extremist movement that defames the Jewish state and denies
the Jewish people`s rights to self-determination, statehood, and
security. This resolution is destructive: it does nothing to further
peaceful coexistence and a resolution of the conflict. Furthermore, as
former Harvard University president Lawrence Summers noted, singling out
Israel for opprobrium is anti-Semitic in effect if not in intent.

Actively seek more institutional partnerships with Israeli universities: an anti-academic boycott of Israel. Israel`s
extraordinary achievements in scholarship and research in multiple
fields have benefited the world. American schools should dramatically
increase their partnerships with Israeli academia to further such
contributions.

2. WRITE TO YOUR CONGRESSIONAL AND STATE REPRESENTATIVES, AND URGE THEM TO:

Publicly denounce the ASA resolution.
This bigoted resolution is an assault on academic freedom, educational
standards, and Israel. Public officials should join together to denounce
it.

Urge schools that are ASA institutional members to sever their association. (The list of 83 schools that are institutional members is below.)

Ensure that public funds are not used to support ASA activities.
Many schools receive federal and/or state funding. Government
officials should not permit public funds designated for education to be
used for political activities, and certainly not for political extremism
and bigotry.

Encourage and facilitate partnerships between Israeli academia and American schools.

Sunday, December 22, 2013

Its a familiar routine by now. An artist or group announces their intention of performing for their fans in Israel. The haters mobilize- they inundate the facebook pages and Twitter feeds of the artist. They spread lies- and often they threaten the artists. Sometimes they are banned or blocked- as often they are ignored or rebuked.

Lets examine this week's BDS fail: King Lizard, who just played a successful show in Tel Aviv.

Tali Shapiro begins by urging her friends and partners in slime to spam King Lizard

The following is a list of institutions whose presidents or
chancellors have publicly rejected the academic boycott of Israel in
recent days. The Executive Committee of the Association of American
Universities, which represents 62 top institutions in the U.S. and
Canada, has also expressed its strong opposition to the boycott, as has the American Association of University Professors, which counts more than 48,000 members.(Updated 3:27 p.m. EST, 12/28. Current tally: 78)

Ryan Bellerose, a member of the First Nations of Canada and an Idle No More Organizer speaks out against the Native American and Indigenous Studies call for the boycott of Israeli institutions.

Ryan, a founding member of Calgary United with Israel was asked if he had a "foot in both camps", as an aboriginal man interested in Israel. Ryan answers "I think of the struggle as the same camp. I see Israel as an indigenous project, basically indigenous people who have managed to return to their traditional lands and create a state. I happen to think its a really great example for our people"

Regarding the proposed NAISA boycott of Israeli goods and services, Ryan respond that the group is not an indigenous group- it is all "white people"

Via the Israelllycool website: Ryan Bellerose's letter to the NAISA reprinted bellowTo the leadership of Native American and Indigenous Studies Association (NAISA)

“I was shown your website by a friend and colleague and to be quite
honest I am extremely shocked that an organisation that states it is
here as a group dedicated to studying Native American and Indigenous
issues is openly supporting a racist, anti-indigenous group like BDS. As
a Metis human rights activist who has studied the history of the Middle
East, I feel it’s important for people like me to speak out because
frankly you can only be supporting this boycott out of ignorance.

First off, as indigenous people it’s very important for us to support
the struggles of our indigenous brethren. Contrary to popular belief
and the false narrative being spread by pro-palestinians, Arabs are not
indigenous to the Levant. The indigenous people are the Jews who trace
their origins as a people and their culture to the levant. The Arabs who
conquered the Middle East in the seventh century are in fact indigenous
to the arabian peninsula. They do not get to claim indigenous status to
the levant any more than white people can lay claim to being indigenous
to North America. Israel is an indigenous rights project at its core;
it is the return of an indigenous group that was disenfranchised by
colonialists dating back to the Roman occupation and culminating in the
Arab expansion in the seventh century. There is no statute of
limitations on human rights, and indigenous rights are in fact human
rights.

Second off, the boycott is inherently racist and prejudiced; even
anti-Israel spokespeople like Norman Finklestein have openly stated that
BDS is simply another attack against Jews. The hypocrite who started
this Boycott is in fact a student at an Israeli university (Omar
Barghouti who studies at Tel Aviv University). The idea that people
should boycott an entire indigenous nation because of some ridiculous
notion that colonisers have become indigenous is offensive as hell.

This entire ‘supporting the Palestinians out of some misguided
“affinity” with them due to their underdog status’ is quite idiotic
itself; in fact the entire Middle East minus one percent of the land
mass, is under the control of Muslims who share the stated goal of the
Palestinians’ leaders, which is “to remove the state of Israel and its
people from the map”. So that means that in fact Israel is not just the
underdog, but has overcome almost insurmountable odds. The Palestinians
have been nothing more than a tool for the Arab nations to fight the
Jews by proxy.

So you explain to me how a state that consists of one percent of the
land mass and less than one percent of the total population is somehow
an oppressor. The truth is that the Palestinians have been given several
things that North American Indians have never been given: the
opportunity to create their own state. They refused each time, believing
that their Muslim brothers would destroy Israel for them – only they
never have.

Boycotting academics is wrong, it’s immoral and disgusting. It is not
borderline racism, it is abject racism. I urge you and your friends to
reconsider this support of an illegitimate boycott. Please do some
research into this.

We have struggled for equal rights in North America for decades; we
have never stooped to terrorism, or propaganda. We rely on the fact that
our cause is inherently just, so why we align ourselves with people who
advocate for violence I have no idea. We have grassroots movements like
Idle No More in which I have worked as both an organiser and
participant in several events. We do NOT glorify murder nor do we
advocate for violence. BDS is merely less open in its goals, which are
the destruction of Israel and its people.

Friday, December 20, 2013

From Israel21CDashik and Yehuda, two male griffon vultures, first made headlines when they raised surrogate chicks together at the Jerusalem Biblical Zoo back in 1999. Now, Suki and Chupchikoni, two female Jackass penguins, are waving a new rainbow flag at the Zoological Center Ramat Gan (Safari) just outside of Tel Aviv.

Safari keepers say it was pretty obvious that Suki was a female because of her size. As soon as she and Chupchikoni coupled up and started collecting nesting materials together, the zoo staff wrongly assumed that Suki’s black-footed penguin companion was a male. Penguins pair for life and there was no mistaking Suki and Chupchikoni’s attraction.....

The Safari supports the new couple and even promoted their status with a press release and photos. “This is our first lesbian animal couple at the Safari,” said Setti. “And because there are a few young available males in the colony, we are certain that this is a choice they made to be together and not a coupling by default.”

Thursday, December 19, 2013

In 1973, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors
approved a resolution establishing “the creation of a sister city
affiliation between San Francisco and the City of Haifa, State of Israel" designed to promote travel, trade, cultural exchanges, and international understanding.

Both San Francisco and Haifa are located on a bay, both have a diverse population, both are
centers of high-tech, and both sit on an earthquake fault. Just as San
Francisco functions as a "sanctuary" city, Haifa too provided a
sanctuary for people of the Bahai faith, and today is the home of the
Bahai World center.

This week the two "cities by the bay " marked the 40th anniversary of their sister city relationship.

Mayor
Edwin M. Lee, Consul General Andy David, Charlotte Mailliard Schultz
(Chief of Protocol), Senator Mark Leno, City Supervisor Scott Weiner,
Arthur Wachtel, Chair of the San Francisco-Haifa Sister City
Committee, and many others joined in celebrating the 40th year
of Sister City relations between the two cities by the bay.

Guests
included heads of Jewish organizations and members of the Sister City
Committee, including Deputy Consul General Eyal Naor, Tracy Harding,
Regional Director of the U.S. Department of State and Fuad Sweiss, City
Engineer.

Established in 1973,
the Sister City agreement has gained increased momentum in recent
years, generating the visit of Haifa Mayor Yahav to San Francisco in
2010, a game between the Maccabi Haifa basketball team and the Golden
State Warriors in 2012, and an official delegation visit from San
Francisco to Haifa in May this year, including emergency management
personnel, health officials and military staff.

Mayor
Lee affirmed the vital role of the Sister City relationship in promoting
deeper mutual understanding and cooperation, sharing the vision of
Mayor Yahav, who spoke during his 2010 visit of the role of Haifa as a
model for coexistence in the Middle East: "What is outstanding about the
fabric of the people is that all parts, all sectors within the Haifa
society are living in full peace more than 100 years."

In the wake of the passage of the resolution by the ASA
to boycott Israeli institutions, which programs and departments such as
Penn State Harrisburg’s program in American Studies consider to curtail
academic freedom and undermine the reputation of American Studies as a
scholarly enterprise, the chair of the American Studies program at Penn
State Harrisburg plans to drop its institutional membership and will
encourage others to do so.

Dr. Bronner has asked that the following statement also be posted on his behalf:

As a prominent program in American Studies concerned for
the welfare of its students and faculty, Penn State Harrisburg is
worried that the recent actions by the National Council of the American
Studies Association (ASA) do not reflect the longstanding scholarly
enterprise American Studies stands for. The withdrawal of institutional
membership by our program and others allows us to be independent of the
political and ideological resolutions issued by the ASA and concentrate
on building American Studies scholarship with our faculty, students, and
staff. There might be alternative organizations forming in the future
that better represent the field of American Studies. When and if that
occurs, we will re-examine our independent position. In the meantime we
view this move as one intended to protect students and faculty from
opprobrium as a result of the ASA’s claim to represent scholars of
American studies.

Brandeis University has also withdrawn from the American Studies Association, following
the organization’s decision to boycott Israel.

It is a with deep regret that we in the American Studies Program at
Brandeis University have decided to discontinue our institutional
affiliation with the American Studies Association. We view the recent
vote by the membership to affirm an academic boycott of Israel as a
politicization of the discipline and a rebuke to the kind of open
inquiry that a scholarly association should foster. We remain committed
to the discipline of American Studies but we can no longer support an
organization that has rejected two of the core principles of American
culture-- freedom of association and expression.

Legal Insurrection has published a list of all Universities that maintain membership in the American Studies Association.

AMERICAN STUDIES ASSOCIATION – INSTITUTIONAL MEMBERS 2013
Alberta Institute for American Studies
Bard Graduate Center
Boston College
Boston UniversityBrandeis University
Brigham Young University
Brown University
California State University, Fullerton
California State University, Long Beach
Carnegie-Mellon University
Centre for the Study of the United States
College of Staten Island, CUNY
College of William and Mary
Cornell University
Crystal Bridge Museum of American Art
CUNY Graduate Center, American Studies Certificate Program
DePaul University
Dickinson College
Eccles Centre for American Studies, The British Library
Emory University
Fordham University
Franklin College of Indiana
George Washington University
Georgetown University
Hamilton College
Harvard University
Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania
Indiana University
Kennesaw State University
Kenyon College
Lehigh University
The Long Island Museum
Michigan State University, English Department
Middlebury College
New York University
Northwestern UniversityPenn State University, Harrisburg
Princeton University
Ramapo College
Richard Stockton College of New Jersey
Rider University
Roger Williams University
Rowan College of New Jersey
Rutgers University, New Brunswick
Saint John Fisher College
Saint Louis University
Saint Olaf College
Skidmore College
Smith College
Sophia University
St. Francis College
Stanford University, American Studies Program
Stanford University, Green Library
Stetson University
Students At The Center
Temple University
Trinity College, Hartford, CT.
Tufts University
University of Alabama
University of California, San Diego
University of Delaware
University of Hawaii
University of Iowa
University of Maryland, Baltimore County
University of Minnesota
University of Mississippi
University of New Mexico
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
University of Notre Dame
University of Oklahoma Honors College
University of Southern California
University of Southern Mississippi
University of Texas, Austin
University of Texas, Dallas
University of Utah
University of Western Ontario
University of Wyoming
Vanderbilt University
Vassar
Washington State University
Washington University, St. Louis
Western Connecticut State University
Willamette University
Winterthur Program in Early American
Culture Youngstown State University

Many of these universities, or their affiliated printers, also provide financial support for ASA through advertising and exhibiting at Annual Meetings.

ASA has made its decision. These institutions should decide whether they will become accomplices.

You can help. Are you affiliated with any of these schools, as a student, alumni or faculty? Make your feelings known- and ask them to withdraw their institutional support.

I’m most shocked at the low turnout for the vote. Given
the time and energy devoted by the anti-Israel backers of the boycott,
only 825 or so votes were in favor. At the same time, opponents
(who were ambushed by the proposal) only managed to get about 375 people
interested. Effectively, most people didn’t care. Apathy is perhaps
the saddest lesson from this given the odious nature of the proposal,
and it’s how anti-Israel zealots are able to drive issues far out of
proportion to their actual numbers.
In a nation that overwhelmingly supports Israel at historically high
levels, a highly organized cadre of anti-Israel radicals was able to
pull off a multi-year effort successfully. They put their people in
charge of a previously non-partisan academic organization, waited to
ambush the opposition, made sure the flow of information was one-sided,
and in the end used a relatively small but motivated group of
symathizers to commit the entire organization to an act widely condemned
outside the anti-Israel community.It’s a lesson in how good people let bad people win, and should be a
wake up call to supporters of Israel and/or academic freedom.

There are 200,000 dead in Syria and millions of refugees, zero academic freedom in China ... well, why go on; none of these matters seems worthy of notice by the ASA. It is illuminating that one of the endorsers of this move (actually, it is the second name that appears) on the ASA website is Angela Davis, former Communist Party candidate for national office and now a distinguished professor emerita of feminist studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She, like the ASA, has long been blind to human rights abuses -- except in Israel.

This move by the ASA will not harm Israel, but it is enlightening for anyone with children attending or soon to be attending college that this group of academics harbors such an extraordinary bias. The much larger American Association of University Professors has opposed this and all academic boycotts, but that is only partial comfort. The AAUP opposition means that ASA members had a principled and academically defensible basis for voting against the boycott of Israel, yet they voted for it. Those votes express not only bias against Israel, for the reasons Summers notes, but a bias as well against the spirit of free inquiry that is supposed to infuse American academia.

ASA President Curtis Marez was quoted by The New York Times
as admitting that the organization had never before endorsed a boycott
of any kind against any other nation's universities.
According to the report, Marez did not dispute the fact that other
countries, including some in the Middle East, have far worse human
rights records, saying, "One has to start somewhere. … There is a
particular responsibility to answer the call for boycott because [the
U.S.] is the largest supplier of military aid to the State of Israel."

Earlier today, members of the American Studies Association
voted to confirm the organization’s decision to boycott Israel. As far
as we can tell, this is an historic occasion—with the exception of South
Africa, no other country has been deemed so vile by American
academics as to warrant banning all collaboration with its universities
and scholars. In the spirit of public service, then, and to
commemorate this occasion, we offer the following chart, the ASA’s Guide
to World Peace.

"This vote to boycott Israel, one of the most democratic and
academically free nations on the globe, shows the Orwellian
anti-Semitism and moral bankruptcy of the American Studies Association
(ASA).“The Middle East is literally filled with dead from governments’
reaction to the convulsions of the ‘Arab Spring,’ but the American
Studies Association singles out the Jewish State, the one Middle
Eastern country that shares American values, for opprobrium? No wonder
many Americans dismiss the academy as deeply biased and disconnected
with reality."

The process of endorsing the resolution,
which consisted of an electronic membership vote that closed on December
15, raised issues regarding open member discourse and transparency. The
call for a membership vote followed a recommendation by the ASA
National Council, a small body of two dozen people that sets policy for
an organization of only 5,000 members. The resolution faced vocal
opposition by eight former ASA Presidents, ASA award winners, and
members that wrote an open letter condemning the resolution with 70
signatories. Until challenged, the leadership did not provide dissenting
views or access to the membership to opponents of the resolution. ASA
leaders who claim to champion academic freedom withheld alternate views
from their colleagues, resulting in a vote where only one side of a
complex conflict was formally presented. This reflected the same
imbalance seen at the ASA’s recent annual meeting, where a panel
discussion on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict featured only panelists
in favor of a boycott.

Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Recently, the
American Studies Association (ASA) voted on and adopted a highly biased and contentious resolution
supporting an academic boycott of Israeli academic institutions. The vote represented less than 20 percent of
membership and was rejected by eight
former ASA presidents.

The incomparable Divest this! has written some excellent commentary on the American Studies Association vote over at CIF Watch. Check it out

ASA President Marez told the New York
Times that Israel was chosen to be the group’s human rights pariah
because “you have to start somewhere.” But the chances that the
organization will continue from this starting point to act on human
rights issues regarding other countries is nil since, as noted above,
the ASA’s leaders are not human rights activists but anti-Israeli
partisans first and last. And given that they have forced the
organization to throw academic freedom on the pyre in the name of their
cause, I think it’s fair to say they should no longer even be considered
scholars.

Anyway, as night follows day the script
will play out. Anger and recrimination by the 75% of members who didn’t
vote on the issue (possibly because they – like a friend of mine who is
in the organization – didn’t get the postcard voter reminder from the
ASA leadership until a day after the vote had closed) will escalate once
people realize that a group of people they have never met with no
connection to the field is now speaking in their name. Resignations
will both shrink the organization while concentrating the radicals
within it. Real scholars (like those of AAUP) will continue to pour
their scorn on the group which the BDSers will ignore as they travel the
globe trying to find the next academic organization to corrupt in the
name of ASA.

the BDSers took no chances when they stacked the deck of the committees responsible for the original decision and ensured a lopsided number of voices heard during that debate supported the leadership’s preferred outcome, they then went on to minimize chances that the hoi polloi of the American Studies Association (i.e., the scholars they were elected to represent) get in the way of their political crusade.

Exhibit A: While the ASA leadership gave themselves months to manage discussion of the boycott to ensure their desired results, they have given members just fifteen days to ratify the decision (fifteen days that – by a strange coincidence – coincides with finals period, the busiest time of the year for academics).

Exhibit B: While most normal votes about highly contentious issues would be accompanied by Pro and Anti arguments to give members a sense of the stakes involved and different points of view regarding a charged matter, the leadership decided all the members needed to hear was their own full-throated encouragement of a Yes vote.

Under normal circumstances, I’d take solace in the notion of hypocrisy being the complement vice pays to virtue. But what are we to make of an organization that, in attempting to shut down inquiry with their Israeli colleagues is ready to first shut it down among its own members while simultaneously sending out e-mails urging people to participate in “discussion and healthy debate”?

...The people claiming that their role as scholars gives them and their proposed boycott special meaning have chosen to act like garden variety propagandists – hiding facts, substituting gut emotion for rational debate, limiting rather than encouraging inquiry and debate – to get what they want. And if they manage to eke out a victory, they will immediately try to use the virtues of scholarship they had so recently jettisoned to give their decision extra moral weight.

...the BDSers took no chances when they stacked the deck of the committees responsible for the original decision and ensured a lopsided number of voices heard during that debate supported the leadership’s preferred outcome, they then went on to minimize chances that the hoi polloi of the American Studies Association (i.e., the scholars they were elected to represent) get in the way of their political crusade.

Exhibit A: While the ASA leadership gave themselves months to manage discussion of the boycott to ensure their desired results, they have given members just fifteen days to ratify the decision (fifteen days that – by a strange coincidence – coincides with finals period, the busiest time of the year for academics).

Exhibit B: While most normal votes about highly contentious issues would be accompanied by Pro and Anti arguments to give members a sense of the stakes involved and different points of view regarding a charged matter, the leadership decided all the members needed to hear was their own full-throated encouragement of a Yes vote.

Most recently, a vote by the American Studies Association (ASA) to boycott Israeli academic institutions was passed the same way other votes have gone the BDSers way in recent months: by stacking decision-making committees with people who are BDSers first, academics second, whose fanatic devotion to “the cause” means they are ready to pass politicized motions they had no mandate to even discuss. And like stacked student council votes that passed on a few campuses in the Spring, the notion that these measures represent student or academic opinion is laughable.